Ex. Doc. No. 41. ^' 603 



Jfovemher 14. — When we saddled by the light of the moon and 

 set out, the air was very chilly until sunrise; we passed a gap in 

 the mountains, and emerged about sunrise upon j^nother vast plain 

 lying towards the Gila, with a mountain at some distance on either 

 side- the sun produced wonderful effects with mirage; at the dis- 

 tance of the limits of the horizon, domes, walls, palisades, stee- 

 , pies, houses, and lakes were exhibited to us. About 10 o'clock we 

 came to the river, and found our animals more anxious for grass 

 ,than water, some of them did not drink. Along this stretch^there 

 is no growth but bushes and cactus, even a bait of grass could 

 scarce be found, although there were jplaces where grass had tried 

 to grow, and failed for want of rain. If a contrivance for produ- 

 cing rain is ever put to test, necessity will invei.t it here; the idea 

 is not absurd of making a ra,in — I have done it. After stopping at 

 the river for a while to water, we marched down about four and a 

 half or five miles and encamped on good grass half a mile from the 

 Tiver, the distance 44^ miles, the road firm and plainly marked, evi- 

 dently very old. Near where we struck the river is the sign of 

 an Indian village, but it is evidently recent, probably one of the 

 stopping places of the Coco Maricopas on their progress up the 

 Tiver; they were here in 1827, when Dr. Anderson passed to Cali- 

 fornia, and furnished him with guides. The camp we left 15 miles 

 below the Pimos, Dr. Anderson calls the Salineta; the end of the 

 Jornado he calls Tesotal. The mountains here, as elsewhere in this 

 country, stand off in scattered peaks, scarcely taking any ranges; 

 some peaks to the northwest of us are apparently v_ery high. . 



Jfovember 15. — It rained on us quite briskly last night — the sec- 

 ond rain since we left Santa Fe; the storm-cloud ma'de its appear- 

 ance in the northwest, on the mountains; the wind southeast; -so it 

 is probable the mass of the rain lay to the north of us. We may 

 find'it to have watered the desert on the north side of the Colorado; 

 lay by all day, to give our animals a chance to recruit a little; 

 killed a beef in the evening; we have two left, not being very suc- 

 cessful in buying them from the Pimos; instead of eight, we got 

 four; they were unwilling to sell them for anything but beads. I 

 forgot to ask the Pimos for numerals beyond 10; but, as I have 

 never yet seen a tribe (I have seen hundreds) which did not make 

 use of decimals, compounding all higher numbers from 10^ as we 

 do; whether this refers to the first invention, or to the natural" 

 digits, I know not. 



JVovernber 16. — Marched at half past 8, and continued down the 

 river, the road b*f*ing still an Indian trail, old and well beaten, 

 through the alluvial bottom of the river, which, instead of being a 

 black loam, moist with water, is here, as we have found it all 

 along, still a bed of dry dust off the road, burrowed in every direc- 

 tion by field-mice, making it uncomfortable for man or beast to leave 

 the beaten track; the country thinly covered, as usual, with mes- 

 quite bushes, stink-wood, &c., and the bare places — three-fourths of 

 the land — destitute of all vegetation. We passed about nine miles 

 out, a little grass in a dry slough;, and 12 miles out, we found 



enough of coarse grass to hall to noon upon; about two miles from 



